I was having a discussion the other day with a friend about “good” versus “enjoyable” and how I categorize things I’ve seen. For me, there are a lot of things I think are good that I don’t necessarily enjoy and a lot of things I enjoy that I don’t think are “good.” Really, though, so much of media enjoyment is about personal taste, because a piece of art only exists in conjunction with the viewer.
I tend to divide things up in my head based on whether or not I would recommend something to someone. With BLs and with Thai BLs specifically, there’s the complicating factor of Thai/Asian TV conventions that might not play well with a first-timer. And of course, recommendations should be highly personalized to the person being given the recommendations, because as I said above, art exists in conjunction with its audience.
All that being said: when it comes to declaring something “good,” what I have come around to on this is, “Do I think this work is successful in what it’s trying to do?” There’s an instinct to compare all works against each other—this past week, when someone was complaining about GMMTV’s obsession with social media stats, they posted a graphic of all of the awards won by I Told Sunset About You with the caption, “Your engagement will never get you this, P’Tha,” which was funny to me both because several GMMTV shows have done quite well at end of year awards and because in general GMMTV shows are trying to accomplish something very different from Nadao shows. It’s like comparing your local diner to a molecular gastronomy restaurant. They’re both food, but they aren’t trying to give you the same experience. So instead, I try to look at something and see what story it was trying to tell and if I think it did it effectively.
For example:
Jack & Joker wanted to talk about the rich playing with the poor like toys and the different ways people try to fight back against that through the story of a highly competent thief, but lost its own message amidst gimmicks and the inability to write said thief as actually competent.
Boys in Love wanted to talk about the transition process of being in your last year of high school and finding your path in both romance and education, and largely succeeded.
Last Twilight was, for most of it, about learning to accept and live with a disability, the complications of falling in love with a caretaker, and being a partner to a disabled person without infantalizing them, and then in the last episode they magically undisabled Day, completely torpedoing their own narrative.
My Golden Blood…well, I still can’t really figure out what kind of story it really wanted to be other than horny, because it never focused in enough on any one idea, and that’s why I think it wasn’t good.
A lot of times, I see people complaining because a story isn’t what they want it to be rather than looking at what the story actually is. One I keep seeing is people who think Moonlight Chicken should have been about infidelity or who think that the main relationship in that is shallow or doomed to fail, because they are projecting their own expectations of a typical BL storyline onto something that isn’t that. Or I saw someone complaining that ThamePo didn’t focus enough on the romance, when that show was about balancing your chosen people, romantic or otherwise, with your dreams.
Currently Watching
Desire: I can’t believe we’re this far into this show and Shaoyou still doesn’t know about Hua Yong. Hua Yong’s whole wounded gazelle routine this whole episode was destroying me, he’s such a manipulative psychopath but in a way that’s genuinely so funny to me. I hope we finally get the reveal next episode, since I believe that will be the halfway mark.
I’m still just waiting for Gao Tu to fall into a stress heat in front of Wenlang so Wenlang will finally realize the omega he’s complaining about all the time is Gao Tu. I’m a little worried that this show will end up being a season 1 based on what I know about the book, but I mean, at least the author is apparently wildly rich and willing to fund the show.
Revenged Love: I have to admit this show is starting to drag for me. In general I think the pacing has been kind of slow, but now I’m just desperate for more stuff to happen, which was why cfans complaining about Chi Cheng’s ex showing up to cause chaos made me roll my eyes. God forbid there’s conflict, especially conflict that’s been foreshadowed for half the show! I think what this show lacks, or hasn’t been emphasizing enough, is the non-romance plot, which Desire does have through the whole cancer treatment plotline. Like, nominally there’s Chi Cheng’s relationship with his father, but that hasn’t been dealt with too much recently and so I’ve kind of lost the thread on it.
The Promise of the Soul: Me like, is Haiyuan the reincarnation of grandpa’s childhood crush/friend AND his wife? The heavenly powers really said sorry we fucked that up twice, Xia Cha, here you go, have your grandson’s hot body to seduce your true love. And it’s working! This show remains very silly, but I do like watching Haiyuan specifically, who is both very beautiful and very expressive in a way that contributes strongly to the humor. I also find the b couple very charming and hope we get to see a bit more of them soon.
My Magic Prophecy: I don’t think this show is bad, per se—it’s moderately interesting and I’m enjoying that Sea and Jimmy get to be absolutely rancid to each other. Most of my complaints are directing/artistic direction related. What is up with this 2019-2021 color palette? Why is it shot like a daytime soap at times? Could we dial down the music use? It’s directed by the guy who did The Sign, which I did think looked reasonably good, but the DOP is someone I have in general not been impressed with, so I guess that’s where the problem lies.
The main thing that is cracking me up is how fucking sus First is. Like, that man could not be more suspicious. It’s genuinely thrilling. If Franc and Save weren’t so distracted by finding their childhood crush again, maybe they’d see that Karn is not to be trusted!! Speaking of which, I am more charmed by Franc and Save together than I expected, and also way more sold than I ever could have imagined on Save being the top. Which is lucky, because while I buy top Jimmy very slightly more than usual in this show, I still am like, this is wrong, Jimmy’s sparkly doe eyes were made for him to bottom.
This week also had my son Nut, who did not speak a word and was mostly there to look concerned. Which is fine, but I hope he gets more to do later on. My boy!
At some point, I’m going to need to catch up on the other shows I was watching, but I’m dreading at least The Next Prince, because I have seen some of what Zee and Nunew get up to in that final episode and I truly don’t know if I can watch that. I know way too much about those two. It haunts me.
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